Restorative Just deals with the healing of victims, rehabilitating offenders, and repairing broken relationships between persons and communities. Restorative Justices goal is to get everyone involved in a particular crime to have opportunities to be a part of the healing process. The main idea of restorative justice is that victims, victimizers and their communities are participants in the restoration process. Not only are victims that are directly affected by a crime involved, indirect victims such as families, friends and communities are just as affected by the offense. The safety, support, and needs of these victims are the starting points for any restorative justice process. A primary objective of restorative justice is to attend to all …show more content…
It challenges us to examine the causes of violence and crime in order to identify cycles and then take appropriate measures to break them. This approach is based on the hypothesis that crime is due to social conditions, and accepts that most victimizers have at one point, been a victim themselves. So communities must both take some responsibility for those social conditions that contribute to crime and also work to fix any problems that it is capable of repairing. Healing is crucial not just for victims, but also for victimizers. Both the rehabilitation of these victimizers and their eventual release back into the community are vital aspects of restorative justice. Victimizers should be treated respectfully and their needs addressed just like those who they made a victim. Removing them from the community, or imposing any other severe restrictions, is worst case scenario but may be a needed option. It is thought tat the best way to break the cycle is to prepare and nurture a victimizer back into the …show more content…
Mediation between a victim and their victimizer grows from the natural sense that if one person has hurt another, something good can come of bringing the two people together to talk about it. It is not a new concept, it has been around since the 1970s. Family group conferencing builds on the same basic idea, but it brings more people into the process, those who are indirectly affected by the crime.
In schools in around the U.S. middle and high school students in conflict with other students being bullied or bullying others, meet with students, teachers, and staff they have harmed or who have harmed them, as well as parents and community members, in restorative meetings. These informal meetings make use of talking about the harm caused to victims, responsibility of the victimizer and often apologies
Public opinion generally favors restorative justice practices, and prefers alternatives forms of accountability for most crimes. Restorative justice is a “new” approach based on older practices, unique values, and core ethics. These justice principles guide a new justice process based on maximizing participation of victim, victimizer and community and repairing the damage caused by crime. New outcomes put emphasis on accountability for the victimizer based on taking responsibility to make amends to a victim and community and rebuilding or strengthening relationships of both victimizer
Julie Hilt is the executive director of the Solano County Bar Association. Julie realized that Solano County didn’t have a restorative justice program. Julie realizes this program is new to Solano County and hope the program is supported in the community. Julie states the purpose of the restorative justice program in Solano County focus is to restore the community and promote healing after a crime; the process has additional benefits, such as increased restitution for victims, greater satisfaction with the system and potentially lower recidivism. Julie believes the restorative justice program is designed to teach the offender to be accountable for their wrong doings. Julie says the practices of the program are allowing the victim(s) who is willing the opportunity to come forward and participate in a face to face meeting with offenders.
Restorative justice- an approach to corrective justice that focuses on meeting the need of all concerned.
Even though restorative justice is the new alternative, the empirical data on the positive social implications of using it rather than the retributive justice are worth the change in terms of social benefits. . More so, restorative justice can be applied to both the minors and adults without causing controversies that are initiated majorly by social activists. Even though some governments have argued that restorative justice is beneficial to the proprietor rather than the victim, the change is inevitable if we are to socially change the mindsets of criminals. More so, restorative justice has been studied to provide greater satisfaction to the victims through assuring accountability and by the drastic reduction in repeat offences. Through the development of theoretical approaches we can thus understand the social implications of restorative justice and how we can potentially integrate the same to states’ judicial system.
In After the Crime: The Power of Restorative Justice Dialogues between Victims and Violent Offenders, its author Susan Miller, provides the reason to why it might be beneficial for both a victim and their offender to meet face-to-face after the crime. Not to mention, what has to happen in order to achieve that through two types of restorative programs. One of the programs is intended to benefit an offender and is known as Diversionary Restorative Justice. This program operates much different from the common Criminal Justice process as it focuses on minimizing the sentence given and seeks to rehabilitate the offender and offers less punishment. This program benefits the offender in their rehabilitative treatment but at the same time benefits
Moreover, restorative justice and peacemaking criminology align with broader societal values of compassion, fairness, and reconciliation. They offer a more human-centered approach to justice that prioritizes the dignity and well-being of all individuals involved, including victims, offenders, and community members. By fostering empathy, understanding, and dialogue, these approaches have the potential to transform not only our justice system, but also our broader social fabric. However, challenges remain in implementing restorative justice and peacemaking criminology on a larger scale and ensuring equitable access to these approaches for all individuals affected by crime. This requires continued investment in research, training, and community engagement, as well as meaningful collaboration between criminal justice agencies, community organizations, and policymakers.
Victim Offender Mediation: Two mediation studies conducted in the UK show that 60% of the offenders expressed that the VOM helped them to divert from court cases. Further studies in the US also suggest that the mediation programs successfully diverted offenders from court. An Indiana-Ohio study compared the consequences for seventy-three youth and adults going through VOM programs. One North Carolina program apparently reduced court trials by as much as two-thirds (p.
Its most commonly known definition was provided by Marshall in 1996, that describes restorative justice as a process where both parties; victims and offenders, work together to restore, resolve and deal with the after effects of the offence and future ramifications (as cited in Van Camp & Wemmers, 2013). The concept of restorative justice originally derived from various indigenous and pre-industrial western justice practices, however, in the 1970's it begun to appear in modern times and was then developed as a reference to describe victim-offender programs that were developed in North America (Strang, 2001). Restorative Justice approaches spread across the world in the 1990's, where many countries such as Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, began introducing these approaches as alternatives in their criminal justice systems (Braithwaite, 1999). The concept of restorative justice usually involves victim and offender direct participation and is conducted in the form of conferences or mediation. This is where both parties; the victims and offenders, come together fact-to-face in one location, alongside a facilitator, police and support people, and work out together the consequences of the offenders actions and the
Restorative justice is based on the principle that criminal behavior injures not only the victim but also the community and the offender, and any effort to resolve these problems caused by criminal behavior should involve all of these parties. Common restorative justice initiatives are victim-offender mediation, circle sentencing, community holistic healing programs, and family group conferences. A key to all these responses to criminal behavior is to address not only the offender, but all parties involved including the victim and their families, offender's family, community citizens, and even the police officers themselves.
Restorative justice is an alternate to plain criminal justice processes, with roots in ancient and autochthonous types of justice. It focuses on repairing the damage caused by crime, inside the context of relationships and communities. There is a growing interest in restorative justice as a crucial side of criminal justice reform in several elements of the globe. Public Safety Canada is at the forefront of analysis and development during this field. A restorative justice program aims to induce offenders to require responsibility for his or her actions, to grasp the damage they need caused, to offer them a chance to redeem themselves and to discourage them from committing additional damage.
The purpose of the restorative justice involves three basic goals: reestablishing the victims, reuniting offenders to the community, and helping to heal the community (Goodstein, and Butterfield, 2010). After being charged with an offense, the offender will always have that label on them and how everyone acts towards the offender will change. Restorative justice practices gives the offender a chance to change their outlook on life after being charged. These type of practices involve repairing and restoring relationships. Victims have the chance to come face-to-face with their offenders which could possibly lead to closure.
According to Victim-Offender Mediation and Violent Crimes: On the way to Justice by Ilyssa Wellikoff says, "Victim-offender mediation, which developed in the United States around 1970, has obtained a reputation as being an effective and viable form of restorative justice. This program unites victims with their offenders in order to facilitate dialogue that will aid in both the victim's and the offender's healing. " The United States focuses more on just punishing the offender and does not consider how the victim feels of the situation. The United States first instinct is to keep reincarnating the offender instead of trying to figure out a better solution for them. Victim-offender mediation allows the victim to be part of the process after the offence has been made.
Showing and expressing emotions is what makes us humans. Usually in a typically justice system, the emotional ones are the victims because they have the right to be emotional because they have experienced harm. In restorative justice programs, the offenders are allowed to show emotional and feel supported. “Restorative justice models have come about because of a growing recognition that the criminal justice system is warehousing large numbers of people—disproportionately, African Americans, Hispanics, and the poor—and tearing apart communities while failing to make them safer. Not only does restorative justice offer deeper levels of engagement and rehabilitation, many argue it’s more cost effective, produces less recidivism, and is more satisfying to victims of crime than the current model” (Suttie).
They discuss the crime and what impact it has had on both the victim and the offender. Restorative process consists of individuals who give support to the offender and the victim during their conversation. There are mediators which help the victim and the offender in the discussion of the impact of the crime and try to help resolve any issues. This process is generally separated into three different portions; these are the preparation for the pre-conference, the conference, and the follow up conference.
Victims can pursue one or even a combination of three distinct goals. The first is too see to it that hard-core offenders who act as predators are punished, The second is to use the justice process as leverage to compel lawbreakers to undergo rehabilitative treatment. The third possible aim is to get the court to order convicts to make restitution for any expenses arising from injuries and losses. Punishment is what comes to most people’s minds first, when considering what justice entails. Throughout history, people have always punished one another. However, they may disagree about their reasons for subjecting a wrongdoer to
They have one or more people there that act as a coordinator and they normally prepare the victim and the offender so that they will know what to expect. Victim-offender mediation is the oldest practice and is usually used with the victims and offenders of property crime and minor assaults, participants include the victim, the offender, and the facilitator. The face-to-face meeting is based upon the victim and the offender, accompanied by a small number family members and friends. Family group conferencing originated in New Zealand and its purpose was to divert young offenders from formal judgement of court. It usually involves friends and family members for both victims and offenders as well as additional participants from the community.